Live Below The Line

livebelowtheline.com

I’m pretty sure I was looking at Google News, and some news story had a link to another, to another, and I saw a video interview about “Live Below the Line.” That’s usually how these little hobbies of mine start. I get distracted by something shiny, jump down a long and twisted road of other shiny objects, and end up with a life decision to forever keep worms inside my apartment for composting (or something similar). It’s like my own version of “7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Why is it I won’t eat corn anymore? Oh, right, I watched the movie 300 (shiny)...

So when I saw that interview about Live Below the Line, I went digging deeper to see what it’s all about. It’s an initiative to help eliminate extreme world poverty. What I like so much is that when someone is ready to donate, the money isn’t donated to “Live Below the Line.” They give several charities that already exist that deal with hunger. They don’t care who you give to, just please help. 

They also have a challenge, and I so heartily enjoy a good challenge. I am the one who got excited about trying a 20 minute ice bath twice a week for a month. Yes, that is me. This is 5 day challenge of eating on $1.50 a day. That is the U.S. equivalent of extreme poverty. I am living in rural Alaska where all prices are greatly inflated (can we say $7.04 for a gallon of gas?). The fact that this challenge was even beefier because of my location made it all that more savory. 

I started doing a little preliminary research the next visit to the AC store. I was sure that beans and rice was about all I was going to be able to get, maybe some 15 bean soup and a box of cornbread. One bag of rice with at least 15 servings (5 days x 3 meals): $5.55. Hmm. Without tax, that left me with $1.95. The bags of dry beans on the very next shelf were $3.49. I can’t even buy rice and beans. I decided that I was going to have to do this tax free to make it work. My roommate suggested I make it $3 a day to adjust for  prices, but I didn’t want to go that far yet. 

The next day, I took a trip further down the road to Corina’s store which usually has some cheaper prices. I was able to find a bag of northern beans for 2.48 and a small can of tomato paste of .99 (I like to think that tomato paste added to anything makes it taste better). I then went back to the AC and bought the smaller bag of rice (only 10 servings) for $3.38. With tax it all added up to $7.60. I felt this was acceptable, because I was including tax now. But I am still cheating a bit. I will still be drinking my coffee in the morning. I’m just going to pretend that it falls off of trees here and into my cup of hot water. Also, I’m adding a little olive oil to each serving (My fantasy world also has olive trees. It’s quite a lovely place). And I am using whatever spices are still in my cabinet. So there. 

I must say that shopping for these items was a little heartbreaking. I am doing this for fun. I am doing this by choice. It was like my own episode of Super Shopper. I was thinking, “Geez, this is all I get?” But I get to eat real food all the time (and way too much of it usually). I will probably order a pizza at midnight on Saturday. I ate a large amount of food Monday night to compensate. Again, I am doing this all by choice. I can’t imagine having to do this for real. Every. single. day. 

It might also have been a medieval themed party.

Another note. I am a Paleo girl. I eat meat like breathing water. I had a birthday party where no one was allowed to bring any bread items. I got swan legs, beef roasts, a rabbit still in the snare, moose stew. My friends know me. I buy grass-fed beef, compassionate raised pork, and free range chicken. I buy organic vegetables that are shipped in a box to me every week (I know not very permaculturist of me, but one step at a time). I freakin’ love me some food. So one, a very bland diet of rice and beans isn’t that appealing. Two, my intestines have become very sensitive to non-meat and non-vegetable matter. And by sensitive I mean gassy. More than a very small amount of dairy will make tomorrow unpleasant for everyone. So I am going into this knowing that there will be some level of GI distress. Fair warning to you all. 

I made the whole bag of rice and beans, threw them in a pot with the tomato paste, and mixed it all up. Angie said, “It’s like you have your own Erin Chow.” Every meal I scoop out 1 cup of the chow. Sometimes I add some water to make it more soup like, and sometimes I had some hot sauce (I grabbed a bunch of free bottles of tabasco at the luau in Hawaii, it counts). I am beginning to truely appreciate salt. I’ve always undervalued it before now. Adding a little (lie, it’s a lot) of salt makes it a little more than palatable, it’s almost good. And as much as I claimed above to love good food, I don’t vary too much in my menu. It’s usually the same few meals over and over again. So the repetitiveness isn’t bothering me yet. 

It is an unsatisfying-ly small amount of food though. When my little bowl is empty, I look at the clock to see how long before I can eat again. Then, when it is time to eat, I’m all like, “Yay! I get to ea.....it’s gone.” ANd the sad cycle starts again. But I’m doing this for fun. I need to start remembering to spend that sad, disappointing moment in prayer for those who to this everyday. For those who can’t even count on three meals a day. 

So...already not the most consistent blogging ever. I start with an idea almost everyday but by the end, all I want to do is watch Law and Order while scanning pinterest (It's funny that spell check doesn't recognize pinterest as a word yet. Get with the times!) I end up postponing thoughts until I have a huge list of things to write about, feel I should write about all of them, then feel like it's too much of a chore to start tonight, save it for the weekend. Then the weekend is devoted to trial napping and more pinterest. So I decided to pick one thing to write about today, and if I feel like more at the end of it, awesome. If not, awesome.

I have lived in Bethel for six years and it's amazing how much possessions can gather and pile so quickly. I have started a lengthy process of sorting out all my stuff into basically four piles: things that need to come with me this next year, important and sentimental items that need to be stored safely at my parents house, things that I can store in Bethel for my return (but could be jettisoned if the direction of my life changes), and everything else to sell, give, donate, or trash.

I've done lots of sorting already and this weekend was focused on sell. I got a lot of big items onto our town's For Sale facebook page. I stickered and hauled several tote-fulls of junk to a multi-household Moving Sale. They have a nice garage set up (garages are a rare luxury in Bethel) so we could leave things out the night before.

Moving Sales in Bethel are a strange thing. Prices, like everything in Bethel, are much higher. You can make some serious cash fast if you have enough items and keep your doors open long enough. Bicycles for $25, side tables for $40, and a TV for 125.

We made so much money in one Saturday, we decided to reopen on Sunday since everything was already laid out. It was a much slower start since or town has a high church-going population. While we were sitting around, I was thinking that we could use one of those Statue of Liberty costumes and a twirling sign to get some customers flowing. I happen to see a square of cork board in one of the free boxes and thought, "I could make a twirling sign from that." With a little Sharpie magic and a bolt, I had a sign to wave at passing cars. But what about an eye catching costume? Well luckily, a Whoopie Cushion costume was on the rack for $4. Why not advertise for the sale and the costume at the same time?

How could people resist stopping to check it out? We had such a busy afternoon we had to extend our hours! Now I only got to wear that costume for about twenty minutes. The picture got onto facebook, someone wanted the costume, and came to buy it right off my back. Luckily we had a queenly renaissance dress for sale as well. 

We didn't do as well as Saturday, but still fairly well, especially considering it took no extra effort of prep. My last really big item is my snowmachine. I'd like to get rid of that before the end of the month. 

Angie had said earlier, "I don't have a plan for my moving sale money. I guess I should make one." Which started me thinking where my profits should be applied. All the money I make from selling my possessions will go into my bank account back home. My mom has access to it as well, and this will be my get-out-of-jail money. 

So there it is. Selling my junk, moving sale, Whoopie cushion. Pretty much somes up my train of thoughts this past week. 

Visas

I have been trying to navigate the visa requirements for all my preferred destinations. Some of it is very confusing. For the longest time I haven't been able to tell the difference between the needs of a working holiday, tourist, or volunteering visas.

Thankfully, the Australian Woof site has got an amazing website with actually links to visa requirements. A working holiday means you can have a temporary job and get paid a bit to offset your traveling. A tourist visa lets you do volunteer farm work in exchange for room and board, but you couldn't receive payment. The working holiday also requires you to prove you have a ticket out of Australia or enough money to buy one, so you have to show a bank statement of $5100. Yikes. If Australia is near the end of my travels, that might not be the case. Applying for the holiday visa is also more expensive.

The UK Woofing program is confused about their own requirements. Some people are turned around at the airport, some are let through. Doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason. Maybe my time in Scotland will just be to hike. The Malt Whiskey Trail is on my Bucket List.

Another helpful site as been the VisaHQ. Very simple Required or Not Required information.


We've been doing our State Testing at school this week which makes for a very boring day and a sore body from sitting and watching 10 year olds take a grueling marathon of tests for four days. It does provide a lot of reading time though. All week I have been looking at permaculture techniques, animal raising for food, and all that stuff when I found the Milkweed blog. It's a permaculture farm in Australia that has some close connections to Joel Salatin. Salatin was featured in Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollen, which really started this journey for me a few years ago. I started investing in better food and searching out meat that was grass fed. I started worm composting (not too successfully, but I still enjoy it). My brain is tired from all the input from this week. Grey water conservation, rabbit breeding, pig tractors, and earth bag building is just a few of the topics I've been consuming this week. I'm using as much as my time to get intellectually prepared before I go get my hands dirty.